General Overview

Abril Industrial Waxes is a world leader in wax technologies. We take pride in being a boutique manufacturer, efficient and flexible, with the know-how to produce unique products in close collaboration with our clients.

Our History

It was in 1945 that Austrian chemist, inventor and world expert in waxes Dr Leo Ivanovsky formed Abril Industrial Waxes in Bridgend, South Wales.

A number of patents were granted to the company and Abril’s hard, brittle, high-melting-point amide waxes soon became synthetic alternatives to carnauba waxes.

This was shortly after the Second World War, and it is believed that the development of amide waxes was accelerated partly due to the shortage of carnauba during and after the war. At the time carnauba was a key ingredient in boot polish, and as the war saw millions of men marching in leather boots, the demand for products that could keep their feet dry had been steadily increasing.

In the following decades Abril Waxes was celebrated for its pioneering work and its development of the use of amide waxes in plastics where there is food contact. After Ivanovsky’s death in the mid-1960s, his business partner and colleague, Alexander Groszek, stayed on with the company until it was sold in 1975.

The new owners moved Abril Waxes to its current location in Pyle. After having changed owner one more time, Bernard Cooke took over in 2003. Under his watch Abril Waxes developed into a successful boutique manufacturer and became once more a world expert and market leader in waxes.